The present invention relates to a garment hanger having at least one clamp or pinch-grip formed exclusively of plastic for suspending a garment, and more particularly to such a hanger which may be manufactured economically and is adapted to both machine and manual garment loading operations.
Garment hangers having at least one clamp or pinch-grip formed exclusively of plastic for suspending a garment are well-known in the art. Once the appropriate production tools are provided, the cost of manufacturing each hanger through a conventional injection molding process is minimal.
Typically, the pinch-grip of a conventional garment hanger defines an overlap between the grip front leg and the grip back leg with the overlap providing the garment-suspending function. However, it is well-known that, in order to perform injection molding where two pieces overlap, it is necessary to use extremely expensive special injection molds which include slides or other moving parts. The cost of such specialized tooling increases the initial production tool costs and, when amortized, the unit cost per production unit.
During loading of a garment in such a hanger, especially machine loading of the hanger with the garment by automated equipment, the garment is inserted between the clamp legs to varying degrees. For example, the insertion process may terminate when the garment is only slightly up the channel between the two clamp legs or when the garment is further up the channel, and even adjacent the bight of the clamp. This non-uniformity of garment positioning is undesirable from an aesthetic point of view, even though it does not substantially affect the ability of the hanger clamp to suspend the garment. Thus it would be aesthetically desirable if the hanger clamp provided a stop mechanism which limited upward insertion of the garment into the clamp during both machine and manual assembly of the hanger and the garment.
The conventional hangers, as noted above, include an overlap between the front and back clamp legs and this overlap prevents a fully telescopic action between the two legs when aligned (front-to-back) hangers are pressed together--i.e., stacked. Accordingly, the clamp is necessarily relatively thick (typically thicker than the remainder of the hanger) and thus interferes with an economical stacking (whether horizontal or vertical) of an aligned plurality of the hangers. The result is increased packaging, shipping and storage costs.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a garment hanger having at least one clamp or pinch-grip formed exclusively of plastic for suspending a garment wherein there is no overlapping of the clamp legs so that no expensive special features are required on the injection molding equipment.
Another object is to provide such a hanger in which the clamp includes means for limiting automatic or manual insertion of a garment thereinto.
A further object is to provide such a hanger wherein the legs of the clamp are fully telescopic when aligned hangers are pressed together in a stack.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide such a garment hanger which is simple and economical to manufacture and use.